<p>My D is a good student, 4.00 unweighed GPA, 2270 SAT, many APs, EC, volunteer ... but the schools she applied to do not seem to be good prospects for merit aids, UMich, U Minn, UNC, USC, Stanford, UT (In state). The only one on her list that may give her something is Purdue but we would still need a big chunk out of pocket.
She only wants to do Pre-Pharm, ChemE or Bio Engr at the top schools.</p>
<p>I looked and looked but couldn't seem to find anywhere else to suggest to her. Does anyone have any ideas?</p>
<p>U MN gives decent merit aid to high stat OOS students like your daughter.</p>
<p>Gold National: Covers the full difference between resident and non-resident tuition rates each year for 4 years
Maroon National: Covers 50 percent of the difference between resident and non-resident tuition rates each year for 4 years.</p>
<p>Gold Scholar Award $10,000 each year for four years, preference for NMF but I believe others can get this. </p>
<p>I know that others have mentioned USC giving merit.</p>
<p>The ‘top’ schools rarely give enough merit to make attendance free.</p>
<p>I believe your daughter would qualify for a full tuition scholarship to Alabama.</p>
<p>fire123, Your list only has state U’s. The privates are known for giving better merit aid, although many public U’s will give some OOS students in-state tuition. Your thread title should be something along the lines of “Financial aid for OOS Public?”. Whether it’s need based or merit based, both are considered financial aid.</p>
<p>Is she a National Merit Semi-Finalist? USC has some good scholarships for those who make finalist (half tuition), although the school is more expensive to start with. Not sure how they would combine that with need based aid, but you could check into that.</p>
<p>If she’d consider U Rochester they’d likely give her merit aid, but I don’t know that it would drop below your EFC. It’s possible - and worth a try if she’d consider it.</p>
<p>What about Pittsburgh? She’s high enough for their merit - which could be significant.</p>
<p>fire123: Have her look at the U. of Alabama. A 3.5 GPA and 1400+ (CR and M) on the SAT gives her full tuition for four years. She also receives an engineering scholarship of $2500 a year. </p>
<p>One of my son’s best friends is a female ME major from the Dallas area. She is also a Goldwater and Hollings scholar and has had some outstanding internships through Alabama’s engineering school. She turned down Duke and Rice for UA. My son’s roommate is a ChemE major who attends Bama on a full tuition/housing scholarship. He interned this past summer in Denmark with Exxon/Mobil. He may be studying abroad this spring with a new program in Ireland. He turned down Georgetown to attend UA.</p>
<p>Alabama has a nice engineering program. She will have lots of opportunities for co-ops, internships and other scholarships.</p>
<p>There’s a ‘sticky thread’ at the top of this forum for Schools known for merit aid. It actually dates back to 2005 so some of the information in the early posts is obviously outdated. I am linking you here to January 2012 so you can start reading more up to date information. It may seem like a bit to weed through however you start to see patterns in the types of schools that are going to offer guaranteed merit vs competitive scholarships and the types of students that are going to be competitive at what schools. Keep in mind some people have difficulty and/or do not differentiate between need based financial aid and merit aid. It is obviously an important distinction and it is sometimes pointed out in this thread. It is worth reading. Best of luck.</p>
<p>University of Maryland (but she has to apply RIGHT AWAY, before the priority deadline) has a pharmacy program and an engineering school. They offer scholarships of up to full tuition/room/board to some students with her credentials.</p>
<p>GWU also has an engineering program and has been known to offer some good merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I believe Drexel has been generous to women interested in engineering as well.</p>
<p>Case Western and RPI for engineering. I don’t think RPI has pharm, but I’m less certain about Case. Both will still be expensive with merit, but for my son they were both cheaper than any out of state publics. I second the UMD recommendation - it’s our state flagship.</p>
<p>USC actually has a reputation of giving a lot of half tuition merit scholarships – but it is so expensive to start with that the price after the half tuition merit scholarship will be significantly more than that of the full in-state list price of a Texas public university (or even full out-of-state list price of University of Minnesota - Twin Cities).</p>
<p>You may want to think of your search more in terms of what your price limit is, since a big merit scholarship at an expensive school can still leave a large remaining net price.</p>
<p>Thanks all to your inputs. We are looking at all your recommendations.</p>
<p>D’s PSAT was actually her worst score, 215, which missed our state’s NM cut-off by 2 pts so some of those scholarships like USC’s are not available to her.</p>
<p>She said she looked at U Maryland’ state flag ship but the pharmacy school is a separate campus. I guess if she wants she needs to apply to the main campus?</p>
<p>I am considering cost, she is not.
Since she was in junior high, we said we’d pay 1/2 and now she is holding us to our promises. Unless she can get more $, we will have to dig deep for the difference.</p>
<p>fire123, with an EFC of 25K, you will only be eligible for assistance at colleges totaling more than that which is why sometimes the private schools actually turn out costing less. This was the case with my S. BTW, Cal Poly SLO has some of the best Engineering programs in the state of CA if D is interested in moving to CA.</p>
<p>If your EFC is 25K, merit awards may not help you as much you’d hope. Any partial tuition merit scholarships she may be awarded typically do NOT stack, and will simply be deducted from the financial aid (which is the total COA minus 25K). </p>
<p>Another aspect of FA to consider: Some of the schools on her list may use mostly grant aid (which is the best–free $$), but some may put in a hefty percentage of loans, which may help a little but must be paid back.</p>
<p>I agree with MrsDrs that privates may end up costing less when considering aid factors. USC is known for being quite generous, but still puts student loans in their aid packages. However, your D’s stats are really great and she may be selected to interview for one of USC’s trustee scholarships. Each year about 140 students get 4 year, full tuition scholarships based on merit.</p>
<p>Would it be correct to say that $26,000 per year (UT Austin in-state list price) would be too expensive?</p>
<p>If $13,000 per year (half of $26,000 per year) is a stretch, and your financial aid EFC is substantially more, then she needs to look for really big merit. The following may be worth considering as safeties (automatic scholarships for stats):</p>
<p>University of Alabama - Huntsville: if SAT CR+M >= 1490 or ACT >= 34, near-full ride
Louisiana Tech: near-full ride for her stats
Prairie View A&M: near-full ride for her stats
Howard: near-full ride for her stats (but 3.3 or 3.5 college GPA to keep)</p>
<p>She can also try for some competitive full-ride scholarships as reach schools:</p>
<p>North Carolina State: Park scholarship
Georgia Tech: President’s scholarship</p>
<p>Also, a school with more generous than typical need-based financial aid:</p>
<p>Stanford: see what its net price calculator says</p>
<p>Note that most full tuition scholarships will still leave around $10,000 or higher remaining costs, unless the school is in commuting range or is in a very cheap area.</p>
<p>UAB is the only alabama school with an accredited bio=medical engineering program. also other engineering is accredited. she would get blazer elite there of 15k per year…leaving about 10K per year to pay. has a wonderful sci/tech honors program .</p>
<p>If it was just me, I would just as well get full ride or close to full ride to some of these schools you mentioned. They are perfectly fine.
D is picky. She wants the top school first, then money is secondary. Her top choice right now is actually U Mich, which probably means $25K for me and $25K of loans for her a year ;(</p>
<p>does she know how much she will be paying back every month for the next 10-20 years on loans of 100,000.00 might want to show her that as a conversation starter to consider schools that are less expensive for undergrad. will she be able to cover grad/pharmacy school costs also</p>